One More Loss
by Cristofle
Summary: Ficlet from Ryan's POV post The Ex Factor


**One More Loss**

_Author's note: This is post The Ex Factor (fight and apology) from Ryan's POV. I approached it with the idea that Ryan feels a little more free to lash out at Marissa than others because he's always been at least a little more confident she won't completely turn her back on him because of it, and the theory that in that night (although he later found out he was wrong), felt he'd lost that final connection with Marissa. Marissa's companion POV piece is "Not Allowed To Cry"._

Ryan couldn't sleep.

God knew, he had plenty of experience staying up at night with his guts twisted in knots over the very girl he couldn't get out of his head now. Truth be told, he'd had those nights long after he'd told himself everything was over for good. As much as he liked to say he was over it all, as much as he liked to tell himself everything was fine now and he'd completely moved past their relationship, when he couldn't sleep late at night and all his defenses were down only one face still haunted him.

Marissa had always represented something to him.

What it was might not be what some would expect. One would look at Marissa and think she represented the Newport lifestyle, beautiful and inwardly flawed underneath the face of perfection, somehow forever untouchable. To a certain extent that might be true but to Ryan she'd come to represent something else. She was the one who would never completely turn her back on him.

It had shocked him the first few times it happened. When she found out he was from Chino, when he turned her away in the model home, when he got arrested for burning the house down, when she'd caught him with Gabrielle, when he'd overreacted about Luke right before they kissed for the first time…each time, he'd been convinced she'd see he wasn't worth her time. And each time when she kept coming back, it stunned him. The incidents kept getting bigger and she kept sticking around anyway. He blew up at her about Luke's dad; she forgave him as soon as he apologized. He ruined their first 'I love you'; she loved him anyway. He broke up with her because he couldn't trust her; she still wanted to be his friend. He got another girl pregnant; she stood by him. He came back into town; she welcomed him with open arms. He couldn't handle what happened between her and D.J; she worked on a friendship. Somewhere in all of this, he had eventually developed some kind of comfort level. It no longer shocked him when she stuck around, but it never stopped meaning something to him.

He could tell himself a lot of things he'd done were justified. He could tell himself he'd stood by her side through a lot too. It was true, and he knew if he'd ever expressed these thoughts to her she would likely say the same thing. She had made a lot of mistakes; she wasn't an easy person to live with. He could say these things to himself, and know they were the truth.

And during these empty late night moments, he knew none of it mattered.

The fact was, it didn't matter deep down how hard he had tried. He tried with everyone he loved; he'd tried harder with people in his life who had screwed up more and it hadn't made any difference. They all left anyway. He'd never expected the awe inspiringly beautiful girl he'd fallen for the second he'd walked down the driveway and seen her for the first time to be the one who would stay. She wasn't the only one to do so, or even the one to give him the most at the end of the day. That honor still belonged to the Cohens, who'd given him a home and a family. Still, for reasons he didn't even entirely understand, she'd somehow become the one he was comfortable would not completely leave him in the dust. Maybe it was because she was so screwed up. Maybe he felt they were more equals. Maybe it was because as badly as she had hurt him, he knew he'd hurt her badly too, perhaps more than most others in his life, and if she hadn't completely given up on him by now she likely never would.

A huge chunk of that belief had been shattered earlier that evening.

He still wasn't sure how it had snowballed into the enormous rift it had; he supposed it was a million things. Marissa shouldn't have given Lindsay alcohol, but he knew her well enough to know she didn't pressure anyone into drinking. If Lindsay wanted to drink, it wasn't because Marissa forced her to do it, and that in and of itself hadn't warranted him humiliating Marissa in front of other people. Truth be told, that was only a small part of the whole. He was frustrated with the world, more than he wanted to admit. He was frustrated with Seth for being so aggravating about Alex, he was frustrated with Sandy and Kirsten for being so preoccupied and distant since his return, he was frustrated things with Lindsay weren't working out exactly as he planned, he was frustrated with himself for trying to fit himself into a mold that just didn't quite work. Truth be told, he was also frustrated with Marissa, but not exactly for the reasons he'd railed at her about tonight. She was throwing her life away, and it seemed like no one cared enough to try and stop her. Logically, he knew that was none of his business and he no longer had the right to judge her anymore than he had the responsibility to save her, but that didn't stop him from FEELING. He'd quietly watched from the sidelines these past couple months as she spun further and further out of control, knowing she was meant for better things than that and bizarrely feeling more helpless and out of control than ever before to do anything to stop it. As much as he was sometimes angry at himself for still caring, it didn't stop how he felt. The feelings had silently simmered until he'd been given an excuse to unleash them this evening.

He didn't think he'd ever forget the look on her face.

As soon as the dam had burst, the harsh and angry words had just spilled out of him. He'd accused her of trying to get someone else to screw up for a change, railed at her for how things always got out of control when she was around, told her he didn't care if she screwed up her own life because she was already doing a good job of it…told her she wanted to drag Lindsay down the way she always had him.

_**You spent all last year trying to drag me down.**_

As soon as Alex and Seth had spoken up making it clear even they thought he'd gone too far, those words were the ones that rang the most clearly in his head. He'd looked up and truly saw Marissa for the first time since he started his tirade, seen the pain and humiliation and dull sense of worthlessness in the beautiful eyes that had taken his breath away so many times before.

Even now, he felt like he might be sick thinking about it.

When he'd gone to Alex's place chagrined and ready to apologize, he'd thought in the back of his mind that this was one more thing they'd quickly get past, at least enough to be friends. Marissa, regardless of what he thought about it on any given day, had become a permanent part of his life. That wouldn't change. However, as soon as she'd entered the room, quiet and closed off and clearly desperate to hold onto some semblance of dignity, he'd realized all bets were off.

She'd never been so simply…shut down towards him before. Whenever she was shut off in the past, it was usually because she was pissed off and he could see the rage shimmering just beneath the icy surface. Tonight, he'd seen pain and he'd seen some vulnerability, but there hadn't been rage. More than anything, there had been a sense of utter exhaustion to her and the fear that had struck in him was still sending him for a loop.

She'd seemed tired of HIM.

Each word out of her mouth had thrown him off balance and cut him up inside. She was so quietly resigned to what she was saying. It was so obvious to him at that point befriending Lindsay had thrown her somewhat and she'd been doing it to try and make everything easier the way she had with Theresa. His heart responded with a pang; he'd been so focused on what made it easier to get him through the situation he hadn't noticed how obviously uncomfortable both girls were. She seemed more than willing to spend time apart. It hadn't been like when she suggested it back before they went to L.A. Back then, it had been hard for her to say. Tonight, it was like she wanted nothing more in the world. That had hurt. Even though he suggested it to Seth earlier, seeing HER eager to agree to it had hurt. But nothing, NOTHING compared to what she'd said about their relationship.

**_I know it seems like a million years ago we dated…but it wasn't. And okay, maybe you're over it. Maybe it doesn't mean anything to you anymore. Maybe it never did. _**

Would that be her final impression of them? Of HIM? Had he in one second wiped out everything else that had ever happened? Would she now always think he thought of their relationship as an afterthought, a mistake? Would it ever get to the point where he could let her know how untrue that was?

His gut reaction was anger, surprisingly. How could she not know how much she'd meant to him? Hadn't he proved it? But logically, he knew if someone told him he'd never done anything but drag them down he'd probably feel the same way she did. Overwhelmingly, his heart simply ached that she believed that. Even now, it felt like every inch of him ached. He'd stood there, desperately wanting to tell her that wasn't true and not knowing how. She was his first love. She was to date the only girl he'd EVER loved. She'd gotten closer to him than anyone outside of the Cohens and his family, and there had been points where he'd thought she was even closer than some of them. He desperately didn't want her to think that would be her final impression of how he looked back on what they'd shared. Instinctively, he'd wanted to yell, to ask didn't she understand the problem was he cared too much? She still meant too much to him, that was the issue. She still affected him in a way he couldn't explain and it frustrated him.

He couldn't say that, though. For the first time in a long time, he couldn't rail at her, couldn't tell her what he was feeling. From the expression on her face, she simply didn't want to hear it, and he couldn't hurt her worse than he already had either by giving her false hope or further bringing her down by yelling at her again.

Maybe things would change. Maybe things would get better between them. But for right now, he felt like he'd lost that one person he truly BELIEVED would forever be there in some way, shape, or form. He'd lost a freedom with her he'd had regardless of whether or not they were together, and the unexpected loneliness of that sense of loss nearly overwhelmed him. He'd simply apologized and walked out the door, reeling from the guilt, sense of loss, and loneliness that for the time being, and perhaps for good, she appeared to have totally shut down on him.

So that's what it came down to as he stared up at his ceiling in the middle of the night, far from sleep. Maybe it was his fault, maybe it was her fault. He didn't know, and right now he didn't care. It simply felt like one more loss.


End file.
